Commissioners voted Monday, Oct. 22, to approve the revised parking code proposed by the City Planning Department on the first reading. The second and final reading is scheduled for the November 12 meeting.

Code revisions apply specifically to the Central Business District (CBD) along the Park Avenue corridor, the New England Avenue commercial portion of the Hannibal Square neighborhood and the Orange Avenue corridor. The revised codes are the culmination of more than a year’s work by parking consultant Kimley-Horn.

No ‘Fee-in-Lieu’

Originally, the revised ordinance contained six elements. Before their discussion commenced, however, Commissioners excluded the element that would have created a fee-in-lieu of parking, whereby a property owner could pay for required parking within a city-owned parking facility without actually having to provide dedicated parking spaces at their property. This has the effect of leveling the playing field, eliminating any advantage wealthier developers might have over less wealthy ones.

Summary of Major Changes

Under the new ordinance, anyone converting retail or office space to restaurant use in any of these areas, including Park Avenue, must provide the increased parking required for restaurant use.

The ordinance would change the distance permitted for off-site parking from 300 feet to 750 feet. To walk 750 feet takes about five minutes.

The ordinance provides for the use of the Urban Land Institute’s Shared Parking analysis as a reference for determining when and how shared parking will be permitted.

Parking requirements for new retail and general office space will change from four spaces per 1,000 square feet to three spaces per 1,000 square feet.

Finally, parking requirements for large office buildings will be four spaces per 1,000 square feet for the first 20,000 square feet of the building, then will transition to three spaces per 1,000 square feet for all floor area in excess of 20,000 square feet.

‘Grandfather’ Clause

The ordinance will include a “vesting provision,” so that anyone already in the process of designing a project who submits site plans and/or floor plans for City approval by the date of adoption of the ordinance can continue under the current parking code, provided they apply for a building permit by Dec. 31, 2018, and begin construction by March 1, 2019.

Anne Mooney has assumed the editorship of the Winter Park Voice from founding editor Tom Childers.

Mooney got her start in New York as a freelance line editor for book publishers, among them Simon & Schuster and the Clarkson Potter division of Crown Books. From New York, she and her husband and their year-old toddler moved to Washington, D.C., where the two ran a newswire service for Harper’s magazine. “We called it Network News,” said Mooney, “because it was a network of the Harper’s writers, whose work we edited into newspaper style and format and sold to papers in the top U.S. and Canadian markets. We were sort of like a tiny UPI.”

The newswire ceased operation with the death of Mooney’s first husband, but Mooney continued to write and edit, doing freelance work for Williams Sonoma cookbooks and for local publications in D.C.

In 2005, Mooney moved to Winter Park, where she worked as a personal chef and wrote a regular food column for a south Florida magazine. She took an active interest in Winter Park politics and was there when the Winter Park Voice was founded. She wrote occasional pieces for the Voice, including the Childers bio that this piece replaces.

The Winter Park Voice is one of a large number of “hyper-local” publications that have sprung up across the U.S. in response to the decline of the major daily newspapers and the resulting deficit of local news coverage. The Voice’sbeat is Winter Park City Hall, and its purpose is to help the residents of our city better understand the political forces that shape our daily lives.

Hey “up to their old tricks again”, chill out, parking will not be an issue. Everyone is going to use Sunrail and ride their bikes over from the Canopy. The only thing a Winter Parker loves more than gorgeously luxurious “dry clean only” is sweating their $$$ off or getting rained on in it.

Solar paneled covered Ped/Bike paths from The Canopy to the West Side, Downtown WP, neighborhoods might help, with more of the bricked raised pedestrian walkways throughout the entire city to keep out cut-through traffic increases.

Winter Park needs a traffic light at the new Sprouts, with a raised brick crosswalk for people who live south of it. The new Crosby Center needs raised pedestrian crosswalks on Perth with signs for motorists to stop and slow. Cady Way, Whitehall, Lakemont, Winter Park Road, and Glendridge Way all need raised brick crosswalks with signs to yield to pedestrians to slow traffic.

A Miami city commissioner wants to build new bike lanes covered in thin, durable solar panels, which could funnel cheap, clean power to nearby affordable housing projects.

“This needs to happen and we have to do what is best for the community”. Another pure gem from Sprinkel. Quote is in the 10/25 Orlando sentinel article on the parking decision. Only commissioner Cooper recognized the harm this could cause on Park Avenue. The only “community” which will benefit from the adoption of these changes is the community of developers. Think of the over blown projects defeated only because the developer could not meet the parking code requirements. The commission has now removed even this last obstacle for them. Battaglia and Bellows are salivating.

Park Avenue merchants opposed this measure. Unthinkably, they were never surveyed. That is correct. If you were not a property owner- if you merely operated a business or leased space- the city did not give a hoot what you thought. Leary sends a “survey” after every election. But somehow the city officials avoid finding out what residents really think like it was the ebola virus.

I’m not sure I agree with the comment that fee in lieu would benefit wealthy developers. It depends on how much the fee is. It costs a lot to build parking, so finding the land to create them excludes small developers. If the fee is less than the cost, then it would help smaller developers.

The world is changing and parking codes need to change too. Millennials take Uber a lot, no need for a parking space. They are likely to take it if the parking situation is tight. So less parking will change behavior.

Also, I never have an issue finding parking on our around Park Ave. Worst case, I use the garages. The idea behind larger offices is that there is a higher likely people will car pool in a larger office.

This situation makes no sense. But these same people keep getting voted in. Who keeps voting for them? I vote for only one to stay in as commissioner and she knows who she is. I hope all who make con comments about these senseless projects do vote.
How could this be more costly for the larger developers as for years only a few developers have a monopoly on the larger buildings and the small amount of land left so they have been making beaucoup money with the help of most of the commissioners and the mayor(s). So why are the large business buildings grandfathered in for this preposterous project? I often wonder what are the benefits in these situations for the commissioners and mayor(s).
Also, I would like to know the stats on how many millennials reside in Winter Park and use Uber consistently? And, I would like to know the stats on carpooling, as have been told for years this form of transport will ensue. Do you think it has? I don’t see the evidence.Why do you think the traffic keeps getting more congested by the month? Do you actually drive on Aloma, Fairbanks, Orlando Ave, Lee Rd, Pk Ave and all the other every day all day congested entrances and exits to/from Winter Park, which have ruined the charm of beautiful Winter Park where in not too many years past one could enjoy daily walks, bike rides and runs to see Park Ave and the surrounding lovely neighborhoods. Now even to drive one has to be more than very careful not to get in a devastating auto accident or at the very least to not get their car scratched in the too small parking spaces for the too many too large stores on the roads above mentioned.

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